EMP for Meat Processors
Hi,
I would just like to clarify, all resources I have seen so far points only to RTE food requiring EMP. What about non-RTE food items that still have significant risk like steak and raw ground beef? We know that they're meant to be cooked but there are still those who wants their steak or burger medium rare. Even in FSIS, I've only seen EMP required for RTE meat products.
I'm assuming EMP is required for fresh frozen tuna processors since it can be consumed raw.
Thank you very much!
Hi,
I would just like to clarify, all resources I have seen so far points only to RTE food requiring EMP. What about non-RTE food items that still have significant risk like steak and raw ground beef? We know that they're meant to be cooked but there are still those who wants their steak or burger medium rare. Even in FSIS, I've only seen EMP required for RTE meat products.
I'm assuming EMP is required for fresh frozen tuna processors since it can be consumed raw.
Thank you very much!
FS Standard (if any) = ?
So steak and ground have VERY different requirements for pathogens, or even general e coli............pathogens on a steak will be cooked off, even if the steak is served blue rare as the external temp is high enough to kill and the pathogens cannot penetrate whole muscle
Ground however, mixes all the pathogens on the surface into the meat via the grinding process (most parts of the world DO NOT allow a burger to be cooked any less than well done for this reason).................usually a grinding process also includes the addition of a pathogen control (lactic acid etc,)
For beef products, your single biggest risk is ecoli, so that is what your EMP should be based on (regardless of GFSI standard)
Hello Scampi and Charles,
I apologize, should have read more before I posted here. I focused on US requirements (FSMA and FSIS) and forgot to check GFSI requirements first. I found out that all the current versions of GFSI employs risk-analysis for EMP and is not limited to RTE products. Sorry about that.